New Testament : The Parable Of The Workers In The Vineyard? When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, “Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.” The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. “These who were hired last worked only one hour,” they said, “and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day” (Matthew 20:8–12).

Jesus often uses parables to reveal what the kingdom of heaven is like. He portrays how one enters the kingdom and who the different characters are. In this Parable of the Laborers or Workers in the Vineyard, there are things that He tells the disciples and us about the grace of God and that God is always more than fair. Here is a discussion on this parable and what Jesus means in giving it.

There is also another angle in this parable. When vineyard laborers enter into the harvest, they are entering into a vineyard looking for those who bear fruit which Jesus says that those who are the children of God will be the only ones bearing fruit, showing those who are truly saved and those who are not (John 15). Jesus says in fact “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matt 7:16).

A more careful reading of the parable offers an alternate meaning behind Jesus’ words. The eleventh hour workers in the parable represent people who have not heard of Jesus previously. When questioned as to why they are not working, they reply in verse seven that “no one has hired [them]” (Matt. 20:7, NKJV). Even in the “deathbed conversion” interpretation of the parable, the fact that all workers receive the same wages does not indicate that Christians are given a free pass in life as long as they repent before they die. Instead, the parable assures us that there is no advantage to having been born a Christian and that all are likewise saved not by their works but by the goodness of Christ.

Jesus’s teaching regularly challenged this idea and never as overtly as in the parable of the workers. For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, “You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.” So they went. He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, “Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?” See additional info with the The Parable Of The Workers In The Vineyard video on YouTube.